November 22 (SeeNews) - Austrian insurance group UNIQA said that its profit before taxes from operations in Bulgaria more than doubled to 2.7 million euro ($3 million) in the first nine months of 2019 from 1.3 million euro in the same period of last year.
UNIQA's total gross written premiums earned edged up by an annual 1% to 53.2 million euro in the January-September period of 2019, the company said in an interim financial statement earlier this week.
Gross non-life premiums grew 3% on the year to 27.3 million euro, and gross health premiums increased 4% to 6.1 million euro in the review period.
This was partially offset by a 3% decrease in gross premiums from life insurance, which amounted to 19.9 million euro in January-September.
In Bulgaria, the Austrian group owns 99.9% of UNIQA Insurance, 99.6% of UNIQA Life Insurance, 99.8% of Vitosha Auto and 100% of UNIQA Real Estate Bulgaria.
In Southeast Europe, UNIQA operates in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Croatia. In the region - excluding Romania - the group's pre-tax profit rose to 16.3 million euro in the review period from 11.9 million euro the year before, as gross written premiums grew 7% to 240.5 million euro.
($ = 0.9046 euro)